The Flat Earth Conspiracy

I couldn't resist this one. You would think that after the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Einstein everyone would be satisfied that the Earth is round. Actually it's a slightly distorted sphere to be precise. The fact is that there is a group of people who are convinced that the Earth is flat. There is a society dedicated to proving this flat-earth concept. In fact, they have made it a mythical truth to be advertised globally, no pun intended.

It's easy to understand why the ancients thought that the Earth was a big flat circular plane. The sky looks like a giant dome over the land. But, if they were near the sea and watched a ship sail away, they would have noted that the ship sank down as it got further away instead of simply growing smaller; or the fact that the Earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse is curved; or the fact that no one has fallen off the edge; or the fact that stars in the constellations go toward the horizon the further you go from the equator; or that you can see further when you go higher; or the most important proof is that you can see the curvature of the Earth if you go high enough. These people were not stupid; they were ignorant of the science we have today. However, that didn't stop modern people from being ignorant.

The ancients thought that the sun, moon and stars rotated around the Earth, which they thought to be completely unmoving. They didn't realize the rock they were standing on was rotating or that it was orbiting the Sun. However, retrograde movement of some of the planets made early astronomers think that something was wrong with the idea of a central Earth.

It turns out that there are several modern Flat Earth Societies, the original being that formed by Samuel Shenton in 1956. The modern flat earth theory was the work of Samuel Rowbotham, who published a book 'Earth is Not a Globe' in 1848. He claimed that the cosmos was 3,100 miles above the Earth. His beliefs were called Zetetic Astronomy. In this era the Flat Earth Society is on Facebook and Twitter. People who believe in this are termed Flat Earthers, and they follow the Zetetic Method, which is an alternative to the scientific method. Basically, their method is empirical and involves rationalism. These are the same methods used by the ancients. They base this on the concept that when one walks around on the Earth it feels flat. They consider the Flat Earth theory to be an epistemological exercise. It's almost like a rebellion against science.

This idea is very consistent with conspiracy theorists who use the same methodology to come to erroneous but psychologically fulfilling theories about many notable events in history. In essence their ideas appeal to people who don't use logic but instead give in to feelings and basic instincts, which are not scientific. Science is based on repeatable observations or experiments, not feelings or beliefs.

Or worse yet, they point out Bible verses that describe that the Earth is flat. If this isn't proof that the Bible is not a science textbook, I don't know what is. The people who wrote the scriptures were not scientists and had no idea what they were standing on.

It turns out that the Flat Earth theory is the mother of all conspiracies because it's a concerted assault on science, which is the only voice of reason in an otherwise totally irrational world. Without science, which is a concerted attempt to understand nature, we would all be immersed in the abject chaos and utter terror that existed in the dark ages.
If you really want to see the ridiculous ideas of why the Earth is flat, read Edward Hendric's book 'The Greatest Lie on Earth'. This guy's explanations are based on feel-good thinking and non-scientific reasoning.

I've written about many of the major conspiracy theories, and this one is in the same category. It's equivalent to Bible fundamentalists believing that the Earth is only five to six thousand years old. My take on the Flat Earth theory is that it's just another attempt by eccentric people to propagate a religious cast on science. In a way it's just a satirical exercise in thought control, the same methodology that politicians use to flim-flam us into voting for them.

Thanks for reading.